Today's age of high energy costs demands warmer clothing. However, although conventionally made clothing, such as outerwear coats and jackets, or outdoor suits may be made in layers with down or other insulating materials between the layers, none are made of an insulated tubular material woven in a pattern to form a fabric from which the novel clothing or other like fabric products can be manufactured.
In the prior art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,240,158 and 4,097,933 teach garments, such as pants and dresses, formed of helically joined pieces wound and joined along contiguous edges of adjacent convolutions of the helix by a continuous seam. The garment thus is essentially a plurality of strips of fabric material wound helically about an axis to form a continuous generally cylindrical body.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,154,792 discloses a bouffant garment made of a relatively small amount of material, that is, by using a single continuous strip of material with the skirt having no vertical seam from top to bottom, and wherein the material is oriented in a spiral of increasing diameter with the edges of the strip of material in overlapping relationship and with the adjacent edges of the spiralled length of material stitched together and contemporaneously shirred.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,377,974 deals with compartmented buoyant materials, and more particularly to a buoyant garment formed of parallel batts or segments of fibrous material separated by a water impermeable film. Such a structure exhibits greater buoyancy effect and thermal protection.
A further prior art reference is to U.S. Pat. No. 3,098,281 and it relates to braiding materials and to articles made therefrom, such as rugs. The rugs and similar coverings are formed from a braid having loops sewn together. The braided material is of a closed means and the material employed is a braiding strip in the form of a flat tube.